


Between the Sheets

by hanledezma



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Nightmares, Sorry Not Sorry, drarry af, i'm figuring ao3 might be able to, they couldn't handle the gay, wrote this for my creative writing class
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-20 22:18:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11344224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanledezma/pseuds/hanledezma
Summary: Draco is so lucky to have Harry; he realizes this. Harry knows he's just as lucky; no one understands him like Draco.





	Between the Sheets

Heather grey eyes flutter open, revealing a soft green wall painted with sunlight. They must have forgotten to pull the curtains shut last night. They had been watching the lights of the city move and ebb as they listened to the honk of horns and lull of conversation. 

Smiling softly and smoothing his hands over the thick white duvet wrapped around him, he shifts slightly back against his lover. Listening carefully, he can still hear the smooth, deep breathing of one asleep.  _ Good _ . 

As slowly as Draco can, he turns around. There Harry is, lying with his arm thrown over his head, a gesture that is sure to leave an ache in his shoulders he will grumble about once he wakes up. There he is, and  _ God, is he beautiful. _ Harry would be playfully indignant if he could hear Draco’s thoughts.

But he is; he is beautiful, despite the scars that litter his chest and arms, caused by a youthful bravery that has left him screaming and shaking in the middle of the night, more than once. He is beautiful, despite the rebellious mess of black hair upon his head. He is beautiful, despite the slightly crooked bridge of his nose, broken once or twice at school. He is beautiful, despite the uneven line of his teeth.

He is beautiful because those scars represent those he has saved and the lives he has redeemed. He is beautiful because regardless of the appearance of the untamed mass of hair, it is the softest thing Draco had ever felt. He is beautiful when he smiles, a warm, bright smile that spreads through Draco like a sunny day. He is beautiful right down to the deep pink cupid’s bow of his lips, and the low timbre of his laugh.

Days like these are rare because more often than not, Draco awakes second. He firmly believes in the powers of beauty sleep, and Harry understands. He sees past Draco’s prickly primadonna exterior and the slight upturn of his well-bred nose and recognizes that Draco likes his sleep because he didn’t sleep well during the war. Honestly, no one did, but few had to deal with the constant sounds of screaming and torture echoing in their own backyard. 

Sometimes, it’s Draco that wakes up screaming- just a name, for his mother, to protect his father. Harry reaches for Draco when he wakes up in the midst of a nightmare and Harry holds him tight. Sometimes, Draco falls right back into a deep sleep. Sometimes, he lies there trembling for hours focusing on the gentle run of Harry’s hands up and down. Up and down.

Sometimes, Draco wakes up frantic, convinced that somehow, Harry has disappeared, left him for the others, left Draco for dead. When he wakes up like this, he crushes himself into Harry, breathing in his scent and leaving frenzied kisses anywhere he can reach, across the broad span of his shoulders and the strong line of his spine, across the scars littering his collarbones and the slices carved along his waist. On nights like these, they fall into the sheets again and again, reminding each other that there is no one else. Reminding each other they are right there. Right there.

Anyway, days like these are rare, so Draco takes his time absorbing the morning. He takes in the sunlight streaming through the window and the sounds of the street. He takes in the bird calls of early spring and the gentle tapping of a tree branch against their window. He takes in the floating dust motes, twirling their well-practiced dance. He takes in the tan of Harry’s skin against the stark white of their sheets. He takes in the mix of their hair, spread together on a pillow, an artist’s rendition of black amongst white. He takes in the soft green of their walls that represent compromise (he still can’t believe Harry let him paint the walls green) and the classic gold of their mirror that represents home. He takes in the elegance of his fingers absently tracing the words, “I Love You,” across Harry’s chest.

Vaguely, Draco wonders what he would have done if Harry hadn’t found him self-destructing in that club six years ago. If Harry hadn’t seen the vulnerability within the wicked gleam of Draco’s grey eyes. If he hadn’t noticed the tremble in his hands as they skated sensually down the lean line of his body. If he hadn’t noticed the self-deprecating hunch of painfully thin, broad shoulders. Harry had known what Draco needed then, just as he knows what Draco needs now. 

Draco’s father had been in prison for treason, and his mother on her last leg. The war had taken more out of the two of them than they could bare. His haughtily beautiful, lost mother was a shell of the woman she had used to be. She no longer strode down hallways as though she owned them. She no longer greeted people with aristocratic grace. His arrogantly stunning father no longer demanded and sneered. He no longer smashed his silver cane against those who disobeyed him. And while they had not been perfect, they had been his.

Losing them had left Draco falling into a tailspin. Where do you go when the world seems to hate you for something you haven’t done? Harry had understood. He had lost his fair share of people in the war. He had done heinous acts, disguised as heroic, deemed  _ just _ on the side of good. Harry knew what it was like to turn into a monster to save the ones he loved. 

Harry had known that the smeared eyeliner and careful sneer was just part of Draco’s cover. He always knew. He took one glance at the bright narcissuses lining a dark, ugly scar and he knew that Draco needed to get out of this place before his demons and bad habits caught up with him.

Unable to help himself, Draco leans in and brushes Harry’s lips with his own until Harry begins to come to. Stretching with his eyes closed, Harry smiles, “Good morning. How long have you been watching me, you creep?” He softens the blow by wrapping his arms around Draco and pulling him close. 

“Long enough,” Draco murmurs, tracing his long, pale index finger down the ridge of Harry’s nose.

Harry’s lips fall into a pout, “Why didn’t you wake me? I could have started breakfast.” His eyes open to small slits, puffy from sleep, as he tries to adjust to the sunlight.

“I just wanted to enjoy the peace and quiet for a little longer,” Draco snips back, trying and failing to keep a fond smile off his face.

“I see,” Harry hums thoughtfully, pulling Draco impossibly closer, entangling their legs together. “Well, I, for one, am ready for about a hour and a half of more sleep.”

Smiling into Harry’s chest, Draco feigns his impatience, “I suppose that can be arranged.”

As Harry’s laugh rumbles through his body, Draco can’t fight the sigh of contentment bubbling at his lips. And among bird calls and sunny days and silver eyes and skin on skin and white blond hair and mint walls and raven hair and verdant eyes and vivid scars and striking tattoos and golden gilded mirrors and city sounds, he is so glad he has been given this chance to love.


End file.
